


say say my playmate (won't you lay hands on me)

by Killtheselights, TheLadyoftheHouse



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Intimacy, Lightsaber Battles, Shameless Smut, Smut, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Trailer, TIE Silencer battle, Tender Sex, the rise of skywalker speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 11:41:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18619921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killtheselights/pseuds/Killtheselights, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyoftheHouse/pseuds/TheLadyoftheHouse
Summary: “I’m sure you’ve felt the disturbance in the Force,” she began, her voice deceptively calm and business-like. “There is...something out there. Something dark as pitch and with enough malice to pull any light near it into nothingness. A void in the universe.”He felt the terror rippling off of her as he watched her. The cockiness she had displayed mere minutes before when she faced down his ship was gone."I felt it too," he murmured. He swallowed, but the words burst forth anyway."And it scares me just as much."A strange Darkness is rising in the galaxy, compelling Rey and Kylo Ren to meet again for the first time since their confrontation on the Supremacy.Much has changed. The First Order endures under the new Supreme Leader. Rey's power has grown and the Resistance is rising again.But their strange Force bond has returned, and with it feelings that must be explored before they can hope to take on a threat greater than any they have ever known.





	say say my playmate (won't you lay hands on me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nadvaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nadvaa/gifts).



> hi welcome to our smutty oneshot.
> 
> It's long because we don't know what the hell oneshot actually means.
> 
> Title from the song "Wolf Like Me" by TV on the Radio
> 
> Enjoy

The sand crunched under her boots. The air was hot and the sun beat down on her shoulders. Rey waited. Listened.  
  
_Not yet._  
  
The screeching moan of a TIE Silencer roiled across the packed dirt, a glint of red and black bit into the corner of her eye. She let out a long breath and ignited her saber.  
  
_Not yet..._  
  
The ship tore toward her and she turned and ran with a fluidity borne of hard-trained muscle and razor-sharp instinct. She could feel the wet heat of the exhaust ports just behind her.  
  
_Now_.  
  
She leaped, propelled upward by the Force and the desert wind and twisted gracefully in the air. Her body arched over the bulbous cockpit, lithe and sinuous as a dancer. A fierce grin broke out over her face.  
  
She landed easily in the Silencer’s wake, twirling her saber with a flourish.  
  
_You can’t catch me,_ she teased.

Kylo's eyes traced the point of her blade, dancing mere inches from the cockpit.  
  
He hadn’t intended to fly _at_ her, merely towards her. She was just being cocky.  
  
He felt her land and flew a safe distance before he whirled the agile ship around.  
  
_You cut it close._

She chuckled and turned to face the oncoming fighter, the singing blue blade angled up in a defensive stance.

Rey exhaled a soft gust of air and deepened her posture.  
  
_Come on, again,_ she urged.

He was taken aback, perfectly content to land and fight with her face-to-face, but obliged with her command.

 _You have to be faster this time._  
  
He angled the ship towards the small silhouette of the woman in the distance.  
  
_I'm not going easy on you._

She rolled her eyes hard enough for Kylo to feel it in the Force.  
  
_Sure you’re not..._

He charged forward faster as if to punctuate his point.

Her grip on the hilt tightened incrementally. The Silencer shrieked back toward her, sand and dust billowing up beneath it.  
  
Her eyes slid closed. She cast the net of her awareness out across the plain, fishing for sensory information in the Force.  
  
Her mind snared against the ship, pushing into the cockpit, brushing Kylo’s cheek with a brief and teasing tendril of energy.

He felt the corner of his mouth twitch. He gripped the controls, pushing the ship lower towards the ground.

She could feel every circuit and current in the Silencer surging forward, faster and faster, closer and closer; a screaming beast of durasteel and anticipation.  
  
She breathed deeply of the dry air and let her stance fall. Every muscle relaxed, every nerve calmed to a melodious hum. The lightsaber disengaged in her hand.

 _Come on,_ he urged silently.

He was barrelling towards her, dust flying in his wake. His complete faith in her abilities was the only thing keeping him from jerking abruptly out of her path.

She felt his discomfort prickling across the bond, bright and bitter in the Force. A little smirk quirked her lips upward.  
  
Her eyes were still closed and she hadn’t moved an inch.  
  
Closer. Just a little closer…

His gloves creaked as he tightened his grip on the controls.  
  
_Rey..._  
  
Her small figure was drawing nearer still and yet she barely dared to move. He guessed her game: he couldn't veer off track. That meant she won. If he shied away from her, she wouldn't let him live it down.

The Silencer was close enough that she could smell the tang of hot durasteel singeing her nostrils.  
  
Her eyes snapped open just in time to catch Kylo’s tense stare through the viewport. Her smile widened and she jumped.  
  
Time seemed to slow. The Force cradled her body as she twisted over his head. Her fingertips trailed just barely over the curve of the cockpit and she held his gaze as she floated above him, grinning brightly as the sun gleaming off the wings.

His heart leaped with her.  
  
She was amazing. He was long since finished fighting with himself over that fact. She was a splendor to behold. He felt the way the Force carried her gently as she flew.  
  
She had taught herself this, and despite his advanced experience, even he couldn't bring his body to glide on the Force as hers did.

Admiration skittered through the Force, tickling against the tendrils keeping her aloft. With a wink and another twirl, she slid down the back end of the ship and landed softly in a crouch. She suddenly felt a fraction heavier now that the invisible energies of the universe had released their hold. She, in turn, exhaled a long-restrained breath.

Kylo sighed.  
  
_Want to give it another go?_

She let out an airy little laugh.  
  
_I knew you were having fun,_ she chuckled.

He felt her presence growing fainter as he flew on.  
  
Fun was...an interesting take on it. Whatever it took to keep her in his sights.  
  
_Oh, we’re assuming this is for my benefit?_

Rey settled down onto the sand, crossing her legs and leaning back casually on her arms.  
  
_By your leave, Master Ren,_ she teased.

He felt relief flood him, but Rey's teasing sparked his stubborn side.  
  
He turned the Silencer again to face her, but instead of initiating the landing sequence, he continued his flight towards her, accelerating all the while.

With a wry grin and a shake of her head, she got to her feet and stood off against the TIE again.  
  
Rey stared him down all the while. He wanted to play? She could play.

He kept his thoughts and feelings as blank as he could while he began his last charge. He flew towards her, daring her to get cocky again.

She glowed in the sunlight, luminous and glorious and nearly blinding in the Force. She had never felt so powerful, so self-assured, so alive. The ship barreled closer with every passing second.

The Force threaded through her fingers in silken tendrils. The Silencer howled ever nearer like a massive black beetle against the sand, coming straight toward her, with scarcely a handful of meters between them.  
  
With a fierce look in her eye, Rey flung her hand out, and the fighter stopped in mid-air, held fast in the Force’s invisible filaments. Once she was sure that her quarry wasn’t going anywhere, she approached, arm still outstretched until her palm was mere inches from the viewport.  
  
“Now are you going to come down out of there?” she said, her voice clear and slightly amused.

Ignoring the alarms screaming about various system failures, he unbuckled himself from his harness and released the latch. He tugged off his helmet, tossing the red and black monstrosity to the floor of the cockpit.  
  
He jumped down onto the ground, dust billowing in his wake, and he rose, towering over Rey, his blade at her throat in a flash of red.

"You're getting sloppy." He shrugged his cape off.

She scoffed, slipping just out of his reach to ignite her own saber.

"I just backflipped over your TIE fighter twice," she purred. "You can kiss my ass."

"Only if you win." He swept his saber so close to her side that she could feel the angry heat of the blade against her bare arm. "And even if you can backflip over an entire fleet, it doesn't mean a thing if you leave yourself exposed."

She blocked his next strike with a lazy flick of her wrist. He wasn't really trying yet. She could tell he was holding back.

Rey spun and bit in lightning fast, her lightsaber sharp and deadly as a viper.

"Exposed? You’re the one who appeared to me half-naked," she taunted. It was childish, but maybe it would goad a reaction from him. She wasn't used to this calm and cool Kylo. She wasn't entirely sure that she liked it.

He pushed back hard against her blade, perhaps rougher than he had intended.

"I'm not looking for an easy fight," he growled.

She swung low by his knees, forcing him backward as she darted back up with another venomous stab that he dodged easily.

"Had me fooled. _Fight_."

He swung his blade in several wild arcs, missing her by mere inches. He spun back around, and she caught his blade.

"If that's what you want."

She pressed closer, their blades sparking ultraviolet between them, hot as the star burning down on them in the midst of the desert. His eyes seared just as hot across her freckled cheekbones. She couldn't tell if the heat rising up her throat was due to the lightsabers, the sun, or his gaze.

She pushed him back with extra aid from the Force, his boots scraping loudly against the packed dirt and sand. Her blade flashed as she twirled it, taking on a combative stance. Aggressive, lethal, all barely restrained ferocity.

He smiled, his tight-lipped smirk a strange sight to behold, his cheeks and eyes creasing deeply.

He gave his saber a lazy twirl. "I liked that. Do it again."

She snarled something that sounded like "Masochist" and charged, battering him with a flurry of Force-boosted blows. She remembered this dance from the forest and the snow and the flames of the Supremacy. Muscles that had itched for use for over a year awakened in the presence of her truest equal in the universe.

For so long she had been restraining herself. Her Force powers frightened her comrades, so she tended to train alone or hold back when working with a sparring partner. The Jedi texts demanded restraint, so she tamped down on the fierce emotions that had kept her alive in the Jakku desert. The bond between her and Kylo opened the Resistance to espionage, so she suppressed the connections as best as she could. She was tired of making herself small. She was tired of holding back.

Gods, but it felt good to let loose.

He felt her strikes in the Force like he might hear a familiar song. Her every blow and parry seemed to sing to him, and it was easy for him to deflect. He felt her ease and relief growing as her strikes came faster, harder, more freely, but it was almost effortless to block her. Her moves were his, or at least had been, and he still distantly felt the strange familiarity and possessiveness he'd felt on Starkiller when she'd tapped into the Force to fight like him.

He knew he had no right to it, to feel this control over her. Her fighting style was now her own, but he knew it just as well.

He laughed, actually laughed, as her blade passed frighteningly close by his body. He felt freer, too, somehow.

He snagged her next strike in the crook of his sword’s crossguard as his amusement rumbled over her bare shoulder.

“Miss me?” Rey quipped, a smile of her own faintly twisting her mouth.

He shoved her back again harder, but she kept her balance.

He observed that the distance from her felt more oppressive than the heat of her presence.

"Dearly," he said, voice stark. Earnest.

Her heart fluttered without her permission and she shook it off with an indolent twist of hard blue light. She paused for a moment to catch her breath. Her muscles were starting to tremble. Sweat beaded down her neck. She needed to finish this soon.

She flew at him, her feet seeming to barely scrape the ground. The star-blue blade cast pools of color on his face.

“Did you think of me at all?” she spat over the crackle of spitting plasma.

Her words cut into him as her blade once had. He panted from the heat, the strain, the memories. He let the clashing of their blades fill the space between them for a moment, bathing them in red and blue light.

"How could I forget you?" he growled. "How could I not think about you every day after you closed that door on me?"

This was not Starkiller. The planet would not collapse between them this time, dividing them and ending their fight. He shifted, drawing his saber away and causing Rey to lose her balance as his stabilizing pressure was pulled back. He raised his blade suddenly, washing her in a harsh red glare, but she recovered her footing and met him overhead in just enough time.

Some unnameable emotion threatened as she struggled under the weight of his blows.

“Did you hate me for it?” she bit out.

"Hate you?"

His blows came harder, more frantic.

"You turned away from me after I offered you _everything._ Did I _hate_ you?"

With a howl, he gave one massive swing into her saber. Her arms protested against the force of it, gritting her teeth and putting all of her strength into blocking him. Then he froze, letting his grip on his blade slacken in his hand.

"I can't hate you," he panted. "I have tried, but I can't."

Seizing the opportunity, she flung her full body weight up against his chest, jamming the point of her shoulder into his solar plexus. He hit the ground with a choked groan and she leveled the point of her blade at his eye, just at the center of the scar she’d given him so long ago.

“Yield, Ben,” she panted, breathless.

He stared up at her, his eyes wide with familiar awe. He deactivated his lightsaber. The low hum of her blue blade was the only sound between them. He let his head fall back against the dust and tried to remember how to breathe again.

She circled him slowly until she was at the top of his head before disengaging her own blade and dropping to the ground beside him. She laid down, a mirror to his position, and exhaled her exhaustion to the sky. She could feel him there, his cheek just shy of hers. She knew that if she only turned her head to the right, he’d be right there, closer than they’d ever been. She fought down the urge to look.

He felt her beside him, settling in like an old friend. The strangeness of the moment was not lost on him; the danger had passed, but still, his heart raced.

"Do you hate me?"

She closed her eyes and shook her head, sand digging into her scalp.

“No.”

The word was nearly lost in the silence of the desert.

“No, Ben, I don’t hate you.”

"Oh."

He chanced tilting his head to glance at her, his eyes tracing along her cheekbones and down her jaw.

He was afraid to ask what he really wanted to know, so he changed to more pressing matters.

"Why now? You shut the connection on Crait. Why did you reach out to me now?"

She could feel his gaze on her face but she couldn’t quite bring herself to look at him without the haze of adrenaline to hide behind.

“I’m sure you’ve felt the disturbance in the Force,” she began, her voice deceptively calm and business-like. “There is...something out there. Something dark as pitch and with enough malice to pull any light near it into nothingness. A void in the universe.”

Her fingers curled absently into the sand.

“It woke me out of a dead sleep one night and I couldn’t shake it. I was...”

Her brow crinkled. Her voice pitched low and frantic.

“I was terrified. That it was you. That you’d finally gone farther than I could reach you.” It was suddenly so easy to be honest with him. The truth just flooded out of her.

He felt the terror rippling off of her as he watched her. The cockiness she had displayed mere minutes before when she faced down his ship was gone.

"I felt it too," he murmured. He swallowed, but the words burst forth anyway.

"And it scares me just as much."

At that, she turned her head toward him and opened her eyes.

Deep brown caught on bright hazel and for the first time in over a year she looked at him, really looked at him. Prominent, slightly crooked nose, full lips, heavy brow, sharp cheekbones, soft jawline, long scar. A face as beautiful as it was contradictory, lean and soft, angular and sensual, elegant in its oddness.

Her heart stuttered in her ribcage and she reached up one dusty hand without even thinking. She brushed a loose tendril of black hair aside, leaving a smudge of dirt on his forehead. She suddenly couldn't quite bring herself to speak.

He smothered a soft whimper in his throat. He hadn't expected her touch, her gentleness, not after how their last encounter ended. Especially not since she had had her blade leveled at him moments before. The blade, he thought distantly, he’d anticipated. He almost preferred it.

"Is that why you wanted me to come?" he whispered.

She nodded a little desperately.

"I wanted...wanted to see you. I wanted to make sure you were...safe," she mumbled.

"Safe." He barked a laugh. "Yeah, that."

She smiled wryly, puffing out an amused breath. She was quiet for a long moment.

"Why did you come?" she whispered. "There was nothing forcing you to."

"I heard you. You called for me to come."

Her eyes met his fearlessly, and did not look away. He met her boldness in turn.

"You didn't say to come quietly."

Her face softened.

“I didn’t actually think that you would, quietly or otherwise.”

He tried to remember her face as he had through their bond the last time he had seen her. He had seen her afraid. This was a different kind of fear. And he knew exactly what it felt like.

"There's something in the Force that is troubling you. You don't want to be caught off guard." He paused. "You don't want to face it alone."

"I don't."

It had been over a year since she’d been in the same physical space as him. Rey shifted a bit, turning onto her side to face him, her hand in the dirt between them.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"I take it you aren't going to kill me, then?" he asked, eyes wandering over her form, the slight curves in her muscled figure. The fact she was wearing white was a cruel joke not lost on him.

The corner of her mouth twitched in a minuscule smile. Her gaze was unbearably soft.

"We both know that that has never been an option for us."

"Us?" He sat up, resting on his forearms. "There's an us now?"

She arched an eyebrow up at him.

"Haven't you been paying attention?"

"Sorry, I've busy been overseeing the opposite side of a war. What kind of us is there?"

She sat up to face him directly, her expression intent.

"What kind of us do you want there to be?" she asked quietly.

"I told you once," he said, laughing bitterly and turning his gaze back on the hazy sky, the sun high overhead. He pulled his right glove off and ran his hand through his dust-coated hair. "I know you didn't feel the same."

"Oh, you _know_ ?" She shook her head in disbelief. "After all the time you spent in my head, you _know_ how I feel? How very convenient!"

She stood abruptly, looking down at him and casting a Rey-sized shadow on his upturned face.

"You offered me an empire when all I wanted was a man." Her voice was hard and her eyes were turning icy. "Did you _know_ that?"

"I knew for the first time in my life I was free," he said at last, rising to his knees, coating more of his black attire in the dirt. "Everything I wanted for years was right there in that burning throne room. And I got all of it...except you. And without you, it meant... _means_ nothing."

The heat was oppressive, and his blood began to pound in his skull.

"You're not saying you possibly could have wanted me, too?"

"Of course I wanted you, you impossible man!"

She wanted to grab him and shake him senseless. She wanted to grab him and kiss him senseless. She wanted. Oh, she wanted.

"I didn't want a throne. I didn't want a galaxy." She curled her arms around herself and looked away from his burning eyes. "I wanted you. Just you."

He peeled off his other glove and stood, stalking closer to her.

"You wanted me?" He tried to silence his disbelief.

She looked up at him with a helpless expression. The thought crossed her mind that she might be in a different kind of danger, now that his hands were empty.

"Yes," she whispered.

"And could you still?"

"You ask that like I ever stopped."

"You, the last Jedi, champion of the Resistance, wanted the Jedi killer, the Supreme Leader of the First Order, your opposite in the Darkness?”

He took a step closer.

“Good," he whispered, his face inches from hers. "Because I haven't either, and I don't plan to."

She wondered distantly when he had gotten so close. Her heart couldn't still be pounding from the fight, could it? Her voice stuck in her throat, blocked by her racing pulse. She couldn't tear her eyes away from him.

She reached up and laid tentative fingers against his jawbone, his skin smooth and warm under her fingertips. He closed his eyes, drinking in her touch.  
  
"Rey."

The name, a lone syllable, was both benediction and prayer.

“Ben.”  
  
She still couldn’t entirely believe that he was real, here, standing in front of her. Her hand slid up, her palm smoothing across his cheek.

He let his face be cradled by his enemy. He let himself be touched.  
  
"This Darkness you feel...I don't know what it is. But you're not going to be alone in facing it."

“You’ll stand with me?” she murmured.

"Yes. It's just us now. And whatever that presence is..."  
  
His eyes snapped open, and he looked away, not seeing her. The facade of power, of control, that he bore slipped. He was Ben Solo again, raw and fretful and human.  
  
"It feels like Snoke...but worse, if that's even possible. And it wants to harm you. Harm...us."  
  
He looked back at her, and she saw Ben, her Ben, return.  
  
"Whatever it is, and whatever we are, I want to stand with you. No matter what it takes."

Rey leaned up and wrapped her arms around his neck, tugging him close.  
  
“Thank you, Ben. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

 _Ben_ .  
  
The name wasn't lost on him. She was a sorceress, stating the name and making the man Ben appear before her, soft and pliable in her hands.  
  
_All I wanted was a man._  
  
His arms circled around her waist. He didn't quite believe she was forgiving his sins. But she was overlooking them for the sake of this unknown Darkness, something strange and terrifying.  
  
_Us_ .  
  
He liked the sound of that.  
  
He liked the feel of her, pressed against him, despite the heat surrounding them. She smelled clean and earthy and vaguely sweet.

A shadow caught his eye. There were clouds rolling over in the distance.

"Is that..."

Rey turned and her stomach dropped.

"Sandstorm," she hissed like a curse.

She disentangled herself from his embrace and called their sabers to her hand. She tossed his to him as she clipped her own to her belt, already heading away from the encroaching storm.

"We have to move," she called over her shoulder, all efficiency and practicality. "Now. That thing is way faster than us and no amount of Force powers is going to save us out here in the open. We need to get to the mountains, we'll be safe there."

He looked back at his ship for a moment, at his discarded cape and gloves lying in the dust, and turned to follow her, clipping his saber on his belt.

She led him up the nearest ridge, scrambling over boulders and ledges. She never looked backward, trusting implicitly that he was behind her. He followed silently and quickly, easily climbing the same rocks with powerful arms and long legs. She could hear him breathing behind her as if his breath was the pulse of the storm. She shook off the thought with a blush that could have been a sunburn and let the wind carry it back out into the desert. Sandstorms had never excited her this way before. She was getting carried away by unfamiliar emotions; she needed to get control of herself back.

He had just pulled himself up to the last ledge to her when the edges of the wind reached them. No sand just yet, but it was enough to whip at his hair and send the ends of her sashes dancing wildly.

"This way," she shouted over the first crash of thunder.

She guided him through a craggy little outcropping of rocks, darting between the sharp boulders with ease. They came to a little structure leaning against the face of the mountain, protected from the valley by a number of tall spires of stone. A tent had been rigged between the stones and the mountain like a mix between a shed and spider's web, a sanctuary cradled in the stone’s hand. She pulled a cord loose where the cloth met the mountainside and ushered him into the opening.

"Inside. We'll be okay in here."

"What is this?" he asked skeptically, unrolling himself as much as he could to stand in the cramped space. He turned back to look at Rey, at the storm following them. It was close.

"My home for the last few weeks," she said as she tightened the entrance back up. "I needed to focus on my training, so I came out here...It's weathered a good number of these storms since I've been here, so we're safe."

Finished, she turned back to him with a tentative smile.

"You look like you need water."

He looked around the small space, taking in every detail of Rey. Her home. He was now intruding in her space. There were a few personal effects: a bedroll, a lantern, some books, rations, and clothes, but, like Rey herself, it was constructed for practicality, with little leftover space for sentimental ornamentation. Save for a bedraggled looking bit of plant matter that looked more feral than flower.

"I would like that, thank you," he said, watching her again.

She slipped past him and produced a canteen from her pack.

"Sorry it's not exactly cold, but it's better than nothing."  
  
“No, it’s...it’s perfect, really. Thanks,” he insisted.

She couldn't quite meet his eye now. He seemed to completely fill the space and being so near to him, so surrounded by him, was intoxicating. She tried to be busy instead. She didn't know what would happen if his gaze pinned her for too long.

He opened the top of the canteen and took a large drink. The water flowed faster than he expected and spilled out the corners of his mouth, dribbling down his chin and neck. With a small curse, he affixed the lid back to the canteen and set it down. He wiped at his chin and began unbuttoning the top of his tunic where the water had slipped beneath his collar. He was relieved to feel some of the heat abating.

She watched him out of the corner of her eye while she tried to seal a few loose edges around the tent's perimeter. The canvas buckled in some places where the wind was blowing, but she'd hammered in the stakes with the Force so she knew they wouldn't tear out of the rock.

It felt like being inside a beating heart when the sandstorms hit. The walls seemed to breathe and pulse. It was almost sensual. Heat that had nothing to do with the sun bloomed faintly just under her skin. Being so close to Ben (Ben undressing Ben overheated Ben tender), was not helping her attempt at self-control.

"Need help with anything?"

She started and looked up at him, her cheeks flushed.

"No, no everything's good," she said quickly, getting up and brushing the sand off her knees. "Now we just have to wait it out."

He tried not to think too much about his ship. It would be fine, of course. But getting away before he could be detected, before he endangered Rey...

"How long do these usually last?"

She shrugged. "Hours, sometimes days when they're really bad. It's hard to say."

"Ah."

Deciding that the occasion for modesty had passed, he released the clasp on his belt and set it aside.

"Guess I should get comfortable then."

She chuckled.

"I didn't know that was possible for you," she teased. "You're always so buttoned up, I thought you slept like that."

"You're assuming I don't?" he asked coyly, fingers attacking the fastenings lower and lower on his abdomen. "It's this heat. I don't know how you do it."

"I grew up with it." She sank down to the floor and started pulling off her boots, wiggling her freed toes. "I think the desert got stuck in my bones."

"And what are you doing back here? Where is the rest of your crew? Your friends..." He caught himself. "Right, military secrets. Forget I asked."

Releasing the last few fastenings, he freed himself from his jacket, shrugging it off his shoulders and setting it aside with a sigh of relief

"Much better."

She shook her head wryly, watching the way his bared arms flexed.

"Stars, Ben, it's a wonder you didn't roast alive in that get-up. It's just layers of black! You should've been dead of heatstroke by the second minute you got out of the Silencer."

The tent around them began to snap in the wind.

"Well, I wanted to give you a fair chance," he smirked, but his face grew suddenly serious as he watched the whipping canvas around them, the light quickly dimming around them.

"It doesn’t seem like the heat is going to be a problem for much longer."

"Well, then you'll have to worry about hypothermia in the night. It gets freezing out here once the sun goes down."

Gods, why was she blathering about the temperature at a time like this…

"So, I should put the jacket back on?" he asked. He self-consciously began dabbing sweat from his torso. He hadn't realized just how much he had been burning up until he felt the dampness of his undershirt, saw the red blotches on his chest. He raked his fingers through his hair. He felt like he was taking up too much of her space. This little tent was a microcosm of her whole world. He didn't fit. They both knew it.

But she had welcomed him, and he had bent over and squeezed himself through the entrance to get in. The storm was closing in on them.

They would make it work somehow.

She laughed again, the sound kind and generous.

"Maybe not just yet," she said gently. "Give your body time to regulate itself."

She stood then and went about unbuckling her own belt, unspooling the ends of her sash from around her waist and dropping them in a small pile in the corner. She could feel his eyes on her back as she walked around the small space, picking things up and putting them down. She brushed by him, her arm mere millimeters from his chest.

"Wait," he said, catching her hand and pulling her back towards him. His eyes narrowed. "What's that?"

"Hm? What?"

"Don't," he commanded softly, reaching up for her right shoulder. "You know what that is."

She looked down at the leather band encircling her upper bicep. His fingers traced the edge of it.

"Oh," she said quietly.

"May I?" he asked, gently this time.

Her lips parted but no sound would come out. His hand was smooth and warm on her arm. She nodded.

He tugged her down to sit cross-legged in front of him and gingerly removed the buckle holding the band in place.

The scar was much thinner now than the red gash it had been when he had last seen her, and the thin, pale line stood out against Rey's tanned skin. His large finger traced the slight, bumpy mark made by the Praetorian guard's blade. They had fought so well together, the Force guiding them, each instinctively knowing the movements of the other. It had been a beautiful dance, their minds acting together, as if they were one...

He turned his eyes back to hers.

"Why?"

She swallowed and fought the shiver that ran down her spine.

"At first because it hurt to look at. It reminded me of what I had lost. So I covered it up."

She watched his fingers skate over her skin, electrifying and soothing her with each pass of his fingertips.

"Then, after a while, because the band reminded me that something was there, hiding underneath the surface. Like you."

"You thought I was lost?"

“...yes. I thought you were lost to me.”

He smiled weakly, eyes never leaving her scar.  
  
"It's nice to hear. Usually, in order to lose something, you have to care about it going missing in the first place."  
  
He dropped his gaze back to her arm.  
  
"It's nice to know that I mattered enough to lose."

“Of course you matter,” she mumbled.  
  
Her captive hand twisted a bit, her fingers caught on his elbow and squeezed gently.  
  
“I care about you...I care so much, Ben.”  
  
She didn’t know if she could call it love. But she did care for him. She had never admitted it aloud before. His presence seemed to draw secrets from her like a magnet.

He watched the wind buffet the tent around them, and he felt himself drawing in protectively closer to her. His other arm coiled carefully around her back, moving slowly so as not to spook her and shatter this fragile peace between them. She had to make the next move; he didn’t know what he would do if she shied away.

Instead, miraculously, she eased into him, her forehead resting on his collarbone.

He brushed his lips against her ear.  
  
"You don't know how much you mean to me, do you?"

She shivered at the caress and shook her head almost shyly into his shoulder.

“So tell me then.”

She melted even further into his arms. “Enlighten me in my ignorance.”

His finger found her chin, and he raised her face to his. Before his pounding heart could overtake him any longer, he pressed his lips to hers.

He missed, only brushing a kiss to her upper lip, and he silently cursed himself.

She smiled brightly, a breathless little laugh escaping her, breezing sweetly across his chin. She slipped her hands onto his shoulders before leaning in to kiss him softly. Her eyes slid shut and everything else in the galaxy disappeared.

He barely remembered to breathe as he felt the gentle press of her lips against his, much more steady and sure than he had been. He closed his eyes as he deepened the kiss.

He was so warm against her, so real and solid. She realized dimly that she could happily spend the rest of her existence kissing Ben Solo. His lips were soft, his arms were strong and sturdy around her. Her hands traveled upwards and buried themselves in his dusty black hair. How it was still soft in spite of all the dirt he'd picked up was beyond her.

After a small eternity, she pulled back, gasping a little for air. She looked back at him with something like affection glimmering in her eyes.

His thoughts were hazy, dulled by the sensations of her. Rey, real, after months of wanting and cruel fantasies.  
  
He had imagined her by his side. His empress. But he would have her however he could for as long as they could steal together.  
  
He had known she felt something for him. That had made the shock of her rejection all the more potent. But it had not removed his desire for her, and as he inhaled the warmth of the storm and stone mingling with her sweet earthiness, he would have given up the galaxy for another taste of her.  
  
He pressed his forehead against hers.

"I care about you, too, Rey," he whispered. "More than you know."  
  
He reached a hand tentatively towards her face and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.  
  
"There are so many uncertainties in the galaxy. But never you. I'm always certain of you.”

She leaned into his hand, meeting his eyes with a soft sigh. His other fingers still traced her scar. So she gently touched his.

She trailed her fingertip down the rough line, down across his eyebrow, over his cheek, hooking under the ridge of his jaw, and down his neck. She had only seen the other end of the scar once, but she could feel where it terminated on his chest through the thin fabric of his undershirt. She could feel his heart beating through the crack and into her palm. He felt so alive, like the molten core of a planet beating through a split in the bedrock.

His breath came out in short bursts.  
  
"You're not afraid of me anymore. You trust me." It was not a command, but a confirmation, something he had gleaned from the gentle brushes of her mind against his.

She looked up at him. Her eyes shimmered in the ruddy half-light.  
  
“Yes.” The sound was little more than a wayward wind caught from the storm outside.

He pulled her mouth to his and kissed her, more confident now, his lips confiding in her his longing from the many months apart.

She moaned softly into his kiss as his emotions swept into her over the Force bond.

He had missed her. Even after she shut him out on Crait, he had missed her so intensely. She felt his desperation, his loneliness, his fleeting moments of hope when she was too tired or drained to shut him out of her mind, usually while she slept. She could feel the ache in his chest when he caught glimpses of her in Force visions (or were they dreams); images and fantasies that he would replay again and again in his mind with quiet pride and admiration as she grew into her power. He was on the other side of the trenches but he still couldn’t stop watching her like she hung the stars themselves. She could feel his dreams of her; soft and insidious in their tenacity, clinging to his thoughts as he moved through his life, unable to shake her.

He had missed her. So much.

In return, she gave him her own longings.

He felt her long nights spent on the Falcon, her face buried in an ancient Jedi tome, growing more confused and frustrated by the moment.

Calling into the Force, she'd dip into memories, sensations, and abilities that were not her own. She felt him in all of them, impressions of Ben. Of his focus, his desires, his fears. She began to learn them as well as she learned to control her not-inconsiderable abilities.

And she'd ache for him, for Ben, for his understanding of her, as well as his knowledge of the Force that she craved. It was that knowledge of herself that no one else in the Resistance could quite provide, and as the nightmares began she found those nights growing lonelier and harsher, the shadows more menacing, more watchful, harder to meditate away. She clung to what little hope she could as she practiced in the desert, learning to trust the Force as she slashed and leaped, but there was always that doubt.

She saw the holos of him. The mask of the Supreme Leader returned, and her heart broke.

She knew the man beneath it.

The young boy Ben Solo had been, loving and exuberant and afraid of the Darkness, still lived beneath that mask. She had seen him before, in a turbolift taking her to meet her fate, fighting by her side in a burning room. There was a strange thoughtfulness to him, a curiosity and hope and wonder the Darkness hadn’t been able to crush, no matter how hard he gave into it. She knew a future awaited him in the light, if he only turned to face it.

She had missed him like a flower misses the sun, but she trusted that the Force had bound them together too tightly for them to be parted indefinitely. She never believed for a second that he would leave her to face the Darkness alone, and the relief her heart felt at being right and being with him and being _safe_ almost caused him to tremble.

He couldn’t believe she could have missed him as he missed her. Even knowing what he now knew, he wasn’t fully able to comprehend it. He’d spent so long certain of her disdain for him...

She clung to him even tighter, pulling him as close to her body as she could, unwilling to let him go far from her. Her tongue darted out to taste and tease at the seam of his lips, her fingers knotted in his hair.

 _The scavenger is hunting again,_ he thought, opening his mouth to let her explore him, to take of him as much as she wanted.

His hands returned to her waist, fingers stretching and seeking to feel and touch more of her.

 _You’re in my territory now, you’ll just have to accept it,_ she quipped back.

She felt his laugh against her lips. His hands slid around her back, tracing up and down her spine.  
  
The contrast between them was stark: her clean white clothing against his dusty black.  
  
_Fitting,_ he thought. _Always opposite. At odds._

“Not at odds,” she whispered, slipping through his thoughts effortlessly as their bodies drew nearer.  
  
“Balanced.”

His thumb brushed across her cheek.  
  
"You think that's possible?"

“I do. With all my heart.”  
  
She leaned closer, until she could just feel the static clinging to his skin.

"And you want that?" he asked pressing his forehead to hers. "You want me?"

Rey gave her answer by brushing her lips softly against his again.  
  
Sparks lit between them and she could so easily forget the raging maelstrom just beyond the tent. His kisses were eager, but he was sloppy, unpracticed. However, he didn't care unless she did.  
  
He had wanted so much in this galaxy that he had been unable to have. He feared that she would turn away from him at any minute, leaving him behind like she had on the Supremacy.

He couldn’t survive that again. He vowed silently that he would not let her turn her back on him again, no matter the cost.

She rose up onto her knees and wound her arms around his neck, opening to him and the passion they had so long been denied. It was so easy to melt into him like this; his kisses made her insides pliant and liquid and she just couldn’t help but get close. It was instinctual to straddle his lap when his hands touched her so tenderly.

He cradled her every curve, his hands gliding across her waist and back. He cupped her ass, moaning against her lips as the wind roared and the darkness began to close around them.  
  
The storm had begun.

Vaguely noticing the intense gloom, Rey managed to break away from Ben’s ardent attentions for a moment. She stretched up on her knees, reaching up to turn on the small lamp that swayed from the canvas ceiling.  
  
_Want to see you...you don’t have to hide anymore..._  
  
The thought floated lazily from her mind. She didn’t care if he heard it.

He swallowed down his fear. She might not like what she saw, might have second thoughts about him, might remember what she hated about him so long ago. Might leave him out in the storm for the Force to deal with him. He wouldn’t blame her.

He tugged his suspenders off his shoulders and let them drop down to his sides before he returned his hands to her hips.  
  
_Please, see me, know me, take whatever you want, I’m not that monster anymore, please, see me as I am._

She wove her hand into his hair, holding him to her neck, moaning and sighing at the heat blooming in her veins.  
  
“I see you, Ben,” she gasped. “I know you. I...want you.”

He nipped at her neck, digging his fingers into the waistband of her leggings, greedily touching and tasting whatever skin he could.  
  
"I'm yours, Rey," he said, cursing at the swell of arousal straining against his pants. "I'll give you...whatever you want. Just tell me."

“Just you,” she gasped. “Just you.”

He released her suddenly and tugged his shirt off over his head, once again exposing his bare chest for her scrutiny. The canvas around them shook.  
  
_Then take it. Take what you want._

Her fingers flew to the fastening of her own top and she shrugged out of it, left in her thin breastband. A pretty flush had crept across her collarbone.  
  
_Balance,_ she purred in his mind as she leaned in to kiss him, her small breasts pressing against his chest.

He moaned into her kisses, the feeling of her skin against his and her chest so tight against him causing his mind to destabilize. No more thoughts of the First Order, of destroying the Resistance, of the strange encroaching darkness. Just her.  
  
He pulled her down on top of him as he leaned back against the bedroll. The wind screamed outside and the canvas snapped around them.

She squealed a laugh at the sudden change of position, her smile dazzling above him. She pulled up to look down at him, admiring the flesh on display from where she sat astride his hips. She let her hands trace every contour of muscle and bone, every scar, every inch of him.

He groaned at her curious touches, tender yet commanding. His fingers teased at her toned, bare belly, drawing lazy designs on her skin as she explored him.

“So beautiful...” she hummed. Her lips followed her hands across his skin, nipping and tasting at his neck and shoulders.

He gasped in delight at her adorations. He splayed his hands across her back, taking in as much of her as he could. He rocked his hips in delight, feeling her press against him. He could not get enough of her.

A moan slipped free as the hardness in his trousers ground against her core. It set her blood on fire and she couldn’t stop herself from rolling her own hips in response.

His hands bunched around her breastband, nails raking against her skin as he grasped desperately for something to hold, a way to center himself. There was only her.

“Stars, Ben...” she gasped, diving in again to devour his lips in a frantic kiss.

He began to lose awareness of where his mouth began and hers ended. The pulse of the storm around them made it hard for him to care. He could protect her easier if she was closer. She could be closer to him still.

 _Touch me take me I’m yours._  
  
The stream of thoughts flowed erratically through the bond, a chorus of desire and affection. Rey felt like she was burning up, as if the sun that Ben seemed to hold in himself was escaping into her at every point of contact. She needed more. She wanted him so intensely that it made her dizzy.

He slid a hand between her legs, letting her feel the jolt of want coursing through him. His thoughts were consumed by her, by her own thoughts, and the spiral of hunger and wanted was almost too much. He just held her tighter. He was secure as long as she was close.

She broke away from his mouth with a ruined little scream, her eyes rolled back in her head. She writhed above him, instinctively seeking the electricity his touch ignited even through their remaining layers of clothing.  
  
“Please...more...” she moaned.

With a gasp of pleasure (hers, he realized; their minds were beginning to rush together) he began stroking his hand along the seam of her leggings, creating tense friction. The lantern above them swayed, casting chaotic shadows over her. He buried his face in her bare neck and chest, sucking and licking as he went.

Her arms shook with the effort of keeping herself suspended over him. The storm seemed to have moved into her skull, because all she could hear was the sound of her blood rushing like sand in her head and Ben’s heavy breathing against her sternum; a harmony of ecstatic desire. Her mouth fell open in a silent scream. She bore down on his clever fingers, the wetness between her thighs soaking through her leggings.

He laughed into her skin, dipping his tongue beneath her breastband.  
  
He returned his hands to her back.  
  
"Balance," he whispered, releasing the buttons and casting the garment aside.

She shivered at the delicious sensation, trying to breathe through the riot of heat and lightning caught in her bones. The thought crossed her mind that she was barely a year out of starvation and it still showed in the jut of her ribs and the crags of her hip bones. She crossed her arms loosely over her chest, a self-conscious blush searing her cheeks.  
  
“Sorry,” she mumbled breathlessly.

  _I’m built for war and hardship. I’m not made for softness and beauty,_ she mused, regret tingeing her thoughts.

 He pushed himself up on his forearms to reach her, nuzzle her neck and collarbones, her elbows creating space between them. He rested against her for a moment.  
  
"You know what you are. You are a warrior and a scavenger," he mumbled affectionately into her skin. "And you are all the more beautiful because of it."  
  
He pulled back, offering her a tentative hand.

She slid her fingers against his, marveling in the matching calluses that littered their palms. Her arms now open to him, he tugged her into his embrace again, chest to chest, bare skin against bare skin. He felt her racing heart, full of anticipation and eagerness and fear, and tried to breathe his adoration into her, send his calm to her, but he just held her tighter to him.  
  
_War can not get us here._

Her answering smile was slow to form but luminous nonetheless, and she took his face in her own hands.  
  
“I believe that,” she whispered. “I believe _you._ “  
  
She kissed him again and again and again, twisting so that their positions were reversed and he loomed above her. Her hands trailed down his body, tracing over scars and muscle until her fingers found the waistband of his trousers.

He gazed down at her, awestruck, until he felt himself closing his eyes and dropping his head toward her chest in silent rapture, the scream of the wind the only noise.  
  
_Yes._

She fumbled for a moment with the fastenings, but it only took a second before she was easing the fabric down his hips. Her mouth latched onto the spot where her scar ended, teasing the scar tissue with her tongue. Her hand slid lower, lower, until her fingertips brushed steel-hard flesh.

He shuddered under her touch  
  
He moaned her name, his fingers flexing against her shoulders.  
  
Need. The word came to him slowly. He needed her.

Liquid heat flooded her core. Her name had never sounded like that before.  
  
“Say it again,” she breathed into his heart. “Please, say my name again...”  
  
Her slim, callused fingers wrapped around the length of him.

He tried to repeat himself to her satisfaction. However, at the feeling of her tightening grip on him, his voice came out as a strangled gasp.  
  
" _Rey. Please._ "

She gave an experimental stroke to gauge his reaction.

He squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. Her touch was unfamiliar and exquisite.

She slid her free hand up his back while the other worked him slowly between them. She liked the sounds he was making. He made her feel alive in a whole new way; her skin flushed, her heart raced, her muscles trembled. She never wanted the feeling to end.

He choked back a whimper. He was losing himself in her grasp, but clung to the desire to touch her.  
  
" _Rey,_ " he nearly sobbed.

“Tell me,” she whispered. “Tell me what you want.” Her hand did not let up its heady rhythm.

"Feel...you," he panted. "I need...you."

“What do you need me to do?”

He pressed his lips to her ear.

"Let me see you," he begged in a frantic whisper. "Let me touch you. Please."

She kissed his neck and gingerly let him go, pushing him back with a gentle hand on his chest. Her gaze never strayed from him as she shimmied her leggings and basics down her legs, chucking the clothes aside.  
  
She was utterly bare, golden and lithe beneath the little lamp as it swung, casting shadows like flames across her body. Outside, the sandstorm heaved and beat at the walls of their sanctuary.  
  
She laid back as she watched him and waited, her chest rising and falling delicately as she sought to regain her breath.

He smiled, his eyes wandering across every inch of her, every curve and muscle and divot of bone. Propping himself on one arm, he used the other hand to trace a line over her breast, across her navel, and to her hip bone.  
  
_Beautiful,_ he thought, kissing her lips.  
  
_Beautiful._ He kissed her throat.  
  
_Beautiful._ He pressed his lips against her sternum, burying his face in her chest, his hand sliding back to her ribs.

Her heart fluttered and she moaned quietly, breathing into the warm weight of him. She stroked her fingers through his hair as his lips moved softly over her skin. The tenderness of his affections was almost unbearable.

The sound of Rey's bliss made him ache. He brushed his thumb over her small breast, feeling the nipple stiffen beneath his touch.  
  
_Beautiful,_ he insisted. _There's nothing about you that isn't._

She arched into him, taut as a bowstring, as goosebumps skittered across her skin.  
  
“Ben...” she sighed.

He rubbed his thumb in small circles across her chest. His tongue wandered across her torso, while his hand traveled lower, brushing across the top of her bare thigh.

Her breath picked up, anticipation and desire setting her pulse racing.

He gently let his hand wander towards the heat and wetness between her legs.  
  
He didn't merely want to explore her; he wanted to touch her as she desired to be touched. To touch her how she touched herself. He wanted her to cry his name again and again until her voice overpowered the storm.  
  
Her slick, dark curls parted for his fingers, and he traced the wetness wherever he could while his head came to rest on her belly.

A guttural groan escaped from her when Ben found her clit. It had been too long since anyone, even herself, had touched her there, and his long thick fingers were surprisingly deft at coaxing pleasure from her. Her hands scrambled against his broad shoulders, her short nails scratching lightly at his skin.  
  
“ _Gods_ , Ben...” she moaned. “D-don’t stop, _please._ “

Her approval made his heart race, and his desire to satisfy her had to fight with his primal urge to take his satisfaction first. He felt his touch was artless and blunt, but Rey didn't seem to mind.  
  
He turned his head, kissing her flat stomach, and began to trail his kisses lower, his nose taken by the scent of her as he placed a kiss on the ridge of her pubic bone, her body writhing joyfully beneath him.  
  
He slid a finger into her, just one as a test.

Her answering moans, loud and lurid, melted into a thunderclap above them. Her head tipped back, loose tendrils of hair slipped free of their bindings and stuck to her neck and forehead.

"Oh gods, _yes_ ,” she groaned.

He stroked her teasingly a few times withdrew his finger, and slid it into his mouth, tasting her and lubricating himself for more.

She looked down at him, her pupils blown wide and color high in her cheeks and breathing hard. Her fingers combed back through his hair, pushing his head back a bit to get a good look at him.  
  
“...Ben?

He slowly drew his finger from his mouth, his lips red and full and glinting in the lamplight.  
  
"Rey?"

She tugged him up to kiss him hard, her tongue snaking into his mouth, devouring him slowly and sweetly. She slipped her feelings into his mind on her lips; the trust, the desire, the forgiveness, the...love.

He shuddered. He did not deserve this. A menacing thought from the back of his mind declared he could not want this: there was too much light in her. Balance would mean his destruction. He could not give in.  
  
And yet...  
  
In the next moment, he returned her kiss, lips, and tongue determined to cast aside doubt as he recited his devotion to her.  
  
Months before, she had rejected him. The fool that he was only craved her more, and he wordlessly begged her to feel his joy at her acceptance of him, as ardent and loud and pulsing as the sand thrumming against the tent around them.

Her hands slipped down to his hips, tugging at his trousers. A silent plea to see him as bare as she was. She wanted him. She wanted all of him.

In the cramped space, he shifted to lie back, offering himself to her clever hands.

She knelt by his feet, her expression serene if flushed. She made short work of his boots, tossing them off to the side somewhere, soon to be followed by his pants, which he shoved the rest of the way down his legs.  
  
He seemed to glow in the low light, pale muscles cast in sharp relief by the lamplight. Her mouth went a bit dry. Thunder crashed somewhere.  
  
Her practiced fingers unwound the buns from the back of her head, combing through a few stubborn snarls. Her hair now reached just past her shoulders in soft waves of golden brown.  
  
Slowly, she crawled back up to him and swung her leg over his torso. With a quiet smile, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to his heart, a part of him that so few knew he had.

His breathing was shallow, and his heart raced beneath her lips. She was splendid. He reached out and tugged a lock of her soft hair. Radiant perfection.  
  
And he was...him. He hoped he was still beautiful to her, too. He wanted the storm to scrub him raw, swallow up his flaws and let him be made clean for her.

She heard the whispers of his insecurities slip through her mind. She sat up above him, her gaze soft on his face. Her fingers delicately traced the line that cracked his face in half, the crater on his shoulder, the knot of scar tissue on his side.  
  
“These aren’t flaws,” she murmured, focused on the scar she had given him. “They’re marks of what you have survived. Of all you had to live through to get to this moment, right now with me.”  
  
She took his hand and kissed his palm, holding it against her cheek.  
  
“I’m grateful for each one because you survived them to get to me.

He closed his eyes in gratitude. When he opened them, speaking slowly, his fingers curled around her cheek.  
  
“I’d take a dozen more if it meant I never had to leave you behind again.”

“You don’t have to,” she breathed, hypnotized by the intensity and earnestness of his gaze, the warmth of his touch. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He took her chin between his fingers, pulling her mouth to his, seeking with his determined touch to etch himself into her memory. If everything else between them was to be scattered like the dust in the storm outside, let this contact between them be immutable. Let this moment be carved into the rock beneath them. Let them have this.

She was not used to this kind of touch, this kind of focused affection. She couldn’t escape the unstoppable way that he wanted her. She didn’t think she ever wanted to.

“Ben,” she whispered into his lips. “Please…”

“Yes?” He pulled away, scanning her face. “ _Oh_. Yes.”

He would have been content for a bit longer to continue to just shower her in affection, but the awkward newness of their contact was quickly melting away in stifling heat, and neither of them could contain it for much longer. He wrapped his arm around her back and rolled over, laying her gently on the bedroll beneath him. He propped himself over her on one arm.  
  
“Is this alright?”

She slid her hands around his neck, weaving her fingers through the ends of his hair and tugging him down for a brief kiss, before dragging her lips delicately against the curve of his cheek.

“This is perfect,” she murmured sweetly. Her legs parted, making room to hold him in the cradle of her hips. Their hearts raced against each other, anticipation or nerves turning their blood to jet fuel.

 He let out a few rasping breaths as he took himself in hand. She seemed so small, suddenly, and he felt afraid of hurting her.

As if he needed another reason to be afraid. She was not his first lover, but she was the first that mattered. Rey would never simply be a temporary source of pleasure. He wanted her to feel good, to give as much as he took. Her eyes on him seemed both ravenous and trusting. Trusting. He wanted to deserve her trust in his every action.

Taking a deep quaking breath, he guided himself between her legs, moving slowly, carefully as he entered her.

Her eyes went wide first, then fluttered shut with a choked moan of pleasure. Her fingers tightened in his hair and her legs locked around his hips. Her head tipped back against the bedroll as stars burst behind her eyelids.

The Force rang in her ears, a crystalline tone of perfect harmony. At that moment, it seemed as if even the sandstorm went silent outside.

“ _Ben…_ ”  
  
He grunted as she pulled him deeper than he thought possible for a woman so small, and, propping himself over her, held her as close and tight as he could manage. For that blissful moment, the only sound was the percussion of their eager hearts, satiated for a moment after years of starvation.

He drew his eyes open slowly to look down at her face, calm despite the tempest around them.

He thought, for a moment, that this was it: there was no going back. But just as the idea occurred to him, his own ridiculousness was thrown back at him. The day had been full of trespasses, both minute and large. He'd never abandoned the First Order like this before. He'd been so hesitant in revealing his feelings to Rey after their last encounter, and he knew she had broken her own personal code by confiding her fears of the Darkness to him. Each kiss, each caress, had been a point of no return. But this moment, this line, the stillness and peace of their minds interwoven in their loving embrace, their bodies and minds united in a blessed silence neither had ever known...

He kissed her temple.

"Rey," he purred.

If this was a boundary being crossed, it was one he never wanted to return from.

She shifted a bit beneath him, groaning with satisfaction as the angle changed just enough to light a spark inside her belly.

“Move, please, _move_ ,” she urged breathlessly, her fingers digging lightly into his shoulder muscles.

 _You won’t break me,_ she whispered into his mind.

He chuckled. He buried his face into her neck as he shifted, beginning to seek friction between them with the roll of his hips.  
  
_No, not unless you want me to._

Her answering laugh became a pleasured sigh as heat built in her core, stoked by the slow gyrations of his body. She wove her fingers deeper into the hair at the back of his head, holding onto him tightly as he moved.  
  
Rey was no blushing virgin with ideas of true love and happily ever afters. Jakku had burnt every fanciful, romantic notion out of her young head quickly and thoroughly. There was no room for romance in the desert. By the time she had reached an age of sexual maturity, half of the males at the Outpost had already expressed...interest in her. She saw the slavers licking their chops for her, a new skin girl to add to their stables. A virgin's first night was usually bought for vast sums, money that would never cross the palms of the girl in question. Rey would not be one of them. So at the first chance she got, she had grabbed a relatively decent-looking off-worlder and convinced him to take her virginity. It had been only slightly painful but mercifully quick, a few thrusts and it was over. There was no attraction, it was merely a business transaction. Though she found herself wondering if this was all there was to sex; was this really what all the fuss was about? The seething look on the sex slavers' faces when she walked off the trader's ship looking appropriately disheveled but blisteringly triumphant had made it all worth it. They couldn't get as much for used goods now. She had won.  
  
From that point on, any physical pleasure that she achieved was found on her own. Who needed a partner when it was easier and more efficient to bring herself to climax?  
  
But then Ben happened. The attraction was instant, albeit confusing. He was her enemy, Darkness' heir, the absolute opposite to her Light, the monster in the mask. She shouldn't have felt anything but disdain and disgust for him.  
  
But he was beautiful. Beautiful and complicated and as damaged as her. Her reflection in a cracked mirror. It was impossible not to care for him.

He was clumsier than he would have liked, but he watched her blossom under him, felt her approval and building need through the Force, and found himself growing more confident. His free arm hugged her knee to him. He moved slowly, deliberately; she was bringing wave after wave of pleasure crashing down on him, but he wanted to last for her.

His cock pressed against something deep inside her and she moaned loudly.  
  
“ _Gods_ , yes right there,” she gasped. “So...good. Oh, Ben, you feel so good...”  
  
She kissed him hungrily, letting him swallow her moans as he continued to rock steadily against that spot.

He stifled the feral growls of ecstasy that threatened to rip free of his throat, his lips locked with hers.  
  
Ben. The name he hated, that he had tried to forget, the one only she called him, sounded beautiful when cried out in want of him. He wanted to wring the bliss out of her.  
  
_Rey..._

She broke from his mouth with a breathless little whimper. Her lips found their way across his cheek, trailing tender fire across his scar. She brushed his hair aside and began nibbling lightly on his ear.

He gasped at her gentle, adoring touch. He pulled out from her, scooping her into his arms and rolling over, positioning her on top of him.

She stopped for a moment to catch her breath, her skin pink and glowing from his attentions. She watched him lay there, his pupils blown wide and inky black as they fixed on her, his chest heaving from their exertions. She leaned down to kiss him softly, smiling against his lips, her hair fell around them in a curtain of soft brown.  
  
“You’re so beautiful, Ben,” she whispered to him, her voice low and sweet as dark honey.  
  
She positioned his cock beneath her and sank down onto him slowly, dragging a long moan from her throat.

His body grew warm with the light of her praise, her affection, and he admired her, bathed in light and shadow above him. In the Darkness, there was no room for beauty, only power and control. And he was the last person to have thought himself desirable. And Rey, gorgeous, gentle Rey, his opposite, a stunning beam of light through his Darkness, was the first person in the galaxy to take him with such tenderness, such affection, such want.  
  
He beamed, but as she slipped him back inside her, he closed his eyes and threw his head back as his mouth gaped in a howl of bliss.  
  
He carefully pulled himself back together and slid his hand forward, feeling for her clit as she ground above him.

She cried out in ecstasy. His touch electrified every nerve ending, spurring her pace on. She rose him recklessly, her hips rolling frantically. She could feel him impossibly deep within her body, grinding again into that secret spot that made her blood burn.  
  
It had never felt like this before. She could tell that they were careening toward something momentous and unstoppable. She reached out for his free hand, interlocking their fingers together.

He brought their joined hands to his lips, holding the kiss for a moment as his hips rolled beneath her.

They were becoming the storm around them, furious and tempestuous and wild, and he was enjoying every moment.

Her mind was a riotous symphony of sensation and emotion, all coherent thinking carried away on the whirling sands outside. All she knew, all she could comprehend, was Ben. His name was a desperate chant in her head, a relentless prayer in one beloved syllable. Her hands landed on his ribs, holding herself up as she writhed and moaned above him.

Their minds danced and whirled together, and he saw his worship for her mixed with her adoration of him, and he'd never felt more full. Her hands on his sides branded him, and he felt his restraint thinning. As their rhythm began to falter in their ecstasy, he pulled her down to kiss him, and guided her to lay beside him. She rested her head on his arm, and his hand snarled gently in her hair.  
  
She pulled slightly away to look back at him; so close that she could see the minute flecks of gold glinting on the outer edges of his irises. She took his face between her hands and held him there as she kissed him softly, trembling, their hearts pressed together and racing in tandem. His hand, large and warm, smoothed up her thigh and hitched her leg over his hip. She touched her forehead to his and they gasped together as he pushed inside her once more.

He tried to remove as much space between them as possible. His fingers on his free hand dug themselves deliriously into her thigh, his hips buried in hers. His eyes locked onto hers, dark and endlessly deep. _This_ was the kind of darkness he craved. He gripped her thigh tighter, beseeching.

 _Tell me what you want, Ben,_ purred her voice in his head. _Tell me what you need._

Her thumb stroked down his cheek, skating gently over the mark she had put there.

_It's not what I need._

He slowed his gentle thrusts, his finger drumming against her leg.

"I want you to come for me," he murmured. "Whatever it takes."

She whimpered and kissed him again, hard and fast.

She could feel something, bright and tight and humming, waiting in her core as he continued to rock steadily inside her. His hand guided her hips to just where she needed him, as if he could feel her desperation as keenly as his own.

“Please, love...” she begged, for what she didn’t know.  
  
_Love._

He hummed into her lips, lightning buzzing between them. Had she called him…?

 _No_ . That couldn’t be what she felt, he chided himself. It was a cry of ecstasy, a momentary lapse. It was a mistake, probably, one he would not dwell on. She was struggling to articulate her needs. She wanted more. Her body wanted. And he was here to give.  
  
His free hand snaked between her legs, pressing a finger to her clit, setting the last of her nerves ablaze.

_Rey..._

She came with a scream. Her back arched, pushing her chest against his, as her internal muscles pulsed like a velvet vice around him. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t see, couldn’t think. She free-fell through the galaxy, but Ben held her tightly through it.

He nuzzled her, murmuring praise against her skin until she shuddered back into her body.

"Beautiful," he whispered, kissing her sweat-soaked neck. He had never felt anything like the joy she'd shared with him. It made his own pleasure that much more acute.

She melted into his body, loose-limbed and panting and glowing like a star in his arms. She rolled her head back to kiss him deeply, jolting a bit when a slight twitch from him shook an aftershock out of her.

"Didn't...didn't think...it would be like...this," she mumbled.

He let out a dry, strained laugh.

"I can't say this is what I expected when I flew out here. The lightsaber in my face was more typical."

He returned her kiss. "This is much better."

Her body shook as she laughed. "Can't disagree with you there."

She pulled back with a sigh, her hips flexing instinctively, somehow still seeking friction even after she finished.

"That was...incredible..."

He closed his eyes sharply at her slight movement, but snapped back open.

"I'm glad I could make you...happy." He struggled for the correct word. "After everything else I've done."

"Shh..." She kissed him quiet and tender again. "We don't have to talk about that yet. Let's just have this for now..."

Another, less subtle, roll of her hips.

He stifled a grunt poorly.

She smiled and started to move more steadily.

"Let me take care of you, Ben," she whispered. "I want to make you feel as good as you made me feel."

He inhaled a sharp breath. His previous lovers had all been selfish—he too had been selfish, seeking out women he only wanted to use who, in turn, sought only to use him. But it makes sex lonely. He tried several times to find fulfillment from these brief encounters, instigated in cantinas where convenience was always favored over connection, but he always left the bed alone, emptier and colder than when he had entered it.

Now, however, Rey had found another way to cut into his core. He felt cared for as she wrested control back from him. The dim tent, pulsing and alive, seemed to lure him back into his body. He let Rey's gyrations guide him as he met her thrusts in turn, propelling himself towards a familiar oblivion, but this time, with Rey's tender guidance.

She brushed her lips against his ear as his arms tightened around her and his pace became more and more erratic.

"You can let go, Ben," she murmured. "It's alright. Let go..."

He panted, body starting to tremble from strain. "I'm close."

She moaned softly, dipping her head to attack his neck with lips and teeth. Her hands slipped on his shoulders, smooth and slick with sweat.  
  
"Come for me, Ben...please, I want you...I want you, Ben, Ben, _Ben_..."

He opened his neck for her attentions, his eyes tensed shut.  
  
She was taking so much of him, giving him so much, and asking only this one thing.  
  
"Rey, yes," he moaned, pulling out from her, and with a rush like the tempest outside, the wind and lightning, he felt himself break.  
  
When his orgasm ceased, he buried himself back into her body, feeling the comfort of her soft and slender frame pressed against him, covered in sweat and spend and never feeling more full than he did now, arms wrapped around her, her legs holding him close.

She peppered his face and hair with kisses and sweet words, telling him how good he was, how much he mattered, how beautiful he was.  
  
A quiet voice in the back of her head reminded her, not unkindly, that this was one stray she couldn’t keep and that their time together was running out. She swallowed down the voice and the tears it brought with it and just held him tighter.

He felt himself relax, deeply rest in her arms, her calming embrace and her heartbeat against his cheek drowning out the noise around them, bringing in an unburdened stillness.  
  
"Thank you," he murmured, wide awake despite his exhaustion. "For all of it."

She combed her fingers through his hair, savoring its softness.  
  
“And thank you,” she replied. “For coming.”  
  
She realized what she said a second after it left her mouth and dissolved into insensible giggles, covering her eyes with a hand.  
  
“Oh kriff walked right into that one,” she snorted.

He slid his fingers between them, wiping away the cum that had transferred between them.  
  
"Really, you were a big help with that too."

She threw her head back with a cackle, bright and loud.  
  
“Oh you’re funny, I like you,” she said, her giggles petering out.

"Never thought I'd hear you say that."  
  
He reached over and wiped the fluid on the rock next to the bedroll. The air seemed chilled removed from her embrace. He kissed the top of her head and settled down again around her.

“What, that you’re funny or that I like you?”

"Well, both were a surprise. But...I'm not used to being liked. Especially not after being called a monster."

“In my defense, you were being rather monstrous,” she said matter-of-factly.  
  
She curled into his side, resting her hand over his heart, delighting in the slowing thump of the muscle. She looked up at him with a grin.  
  
“You’ve done a lot of growing since then, though.”

"Oh have I?" He pulled her in tighter. "Enlighten me. How have I grown?"

She propped her chin on his chest, a pensive expression quirking her brow.  
  
“Well as far as I’m aware, you’re blowing up a lot fewer planets,” she said flatly.

"That was never my division."

“Fine, your war machine is not continuing to blow up planets.”

His heart lurched.  
  
_His_ war machine.  
  
Seeing himself through her eyes, feeling her soft and warm beneath his hands, he couldn't help but wince at that.  
  
"Yeah, that's not exactly a glowing review of my character."

“But it is indicative of your leadership,” she pointed out. “The Resistance has noticed a downtick in outright aggression. You’re trying more diplomacy, aren’t you?”

The wind whipping around them almost drowned him out.  
  
"I thought it would be easier without Snoke's voice in my head, without his presence over me," he said, eyes meeting hers finally. "It was harder than I thought. I couldn't stay angry. Anger is finite. I could only find the Darkness..."  
  
He exhaled slowly. "When I thought of losing you."

She was silent for a long moment.  
  
“You have to care about something going missing in order to lose it,” she said softly.

He chuckled, his thumbs moving in lazy circles over her hips.  
  
"Yeah. Where have I heard that before?"

“Hm, yes, where indeed?”  
  
She smiled gently, cuddling deeper into him. Her face sobered a bit.  
  
“You care so much for your enemy?”

"I never wanted you to be my enemy. I wanted to train you, turn you, stand beside you. But never control you. And that is why..." He trailed off, then set his jaw.  
  
His thoughts betrayed him, regardless, loud enough for her to hear.  
  
_That is why I could never have you._

She let the impact of his words land, and she pulled away from him, rising on shaky legs. He sat up, watching her as she picked up a folded blanket from the corner of the bedroll and walked to the opening of the tent.  
  
"You're right. You can't have me," she said wrapping the blanket around her. "I'm not ready to have you yet. You've grown a lot, sure. And you're on your way towards balance. But you still have room to grow. However..."  
  
Carefully, she reached a hand out from under the blanket, and tugged the fastening loose. Ben expected to see her fly away on a strong gust of wind, but she opened the flap to show him, and she beckoned him to join her. It appeared the darkness outside was no longer caused by the storm, but by the encroaching dusk. The winds still whipped around the tent, but the angry thunder and cutting sand no longer seemed to threaten them.  
  
"The worst of the storm has passed."

She looked back up at him and that quiet, not unkind voice rose again in her head.  
  
_He has to leave now. Start letting him go now, so it hurts less in the long run._  
  
She gave a thin smile and turned back into the tent, bending to pick up her clothes.  
  
“You’re free to go,” she said quietly. “I can help you dig out your ship if you need it.”

His instincts told him to stand tall, square his shoulders, and declare his intentions to the woman before him.  
  
His instincts meant nothing when he was faced with Rey.  
  
He had felt dismissals like this before with women he barely knew, ones he would never see again. He knew Rey too well to command her to bend to his will; he knew her too well to vanish into the night so abruptly.  
  
He reached out his hand and grabbed for her, taking her wrist gently in hand.  
  
"Is that what you want?" he asked, shoulders rounded and bent forward and he was small, almost as small as he could make himself. "You want me to go?"

She looked down at his hand on her skin, and then up at him. Her throat was thick with sand and old emotions, sticking her words in her mouth.  
  
_No,_ whimpered a small voice in his mind. _Please, I don’t want to be alone._

 _You're not alone,_ he remembered whispering to her through their strange connection in the Force. How she offered her hand, and he had taken it, her acceptance of him a sudden, welcome change that made his vision swim with tears.  
  
He found a new instinct driving him, one that caused him to rise and fold himself around Rey’s small form until her sorrow waned. But this time, no words came, and none were needed.

Rey choked on a sob and curled into him; she couldn’t shy away from the warmth and solid safety of his body. Safety was a new trait to attach to Ben, but it felt right.

He buried his face in her hair and held her close against, protecting her from the wind and the night and the world outside that would separate them.  
  
"Never again," he whispered. "I won't let you be alone with the Darkness."

She reached up and wrapped her arms around him, notching her face in the crook of his neck. She felt her mind quiet with his skin pressed to hers.

He stared out into the night, the warmth and gentleness of Rey pressed against him, keeping him from shivering in the chilled desert.  
  
An idea began to solidify in the slight space between them, but he was afraid to give it voice.

“Ben?” she murmured.

"Yes?"

“Where do we go from here?”

He took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her sweat-dampened hair mingling the earthy blanket covering her.  
  
"We find the Darkness."  
  
He cupped her cheek, bringing her face to his.  
  
"Together. But only if you want to."

“I can’t do this by myself,” she murmured. “And I don’t want to do this with anyone else.”

"I can't either, and I don't think there's anyone else in the galaxy I would do it with."  
  
He wondered if there was enough lingering affection in her and if he might succeed if he were to try to kiss her again, but he feared that that sort of intimacy had been abandoned on the bedroll.  
  
"I don't know what we're going to face, but you'll have me, no matter what," he whispered.

Hazel eyes closed and her face leaned into his hand, his palm large enough to encompass her entire cheek.  
  
_Thank you._ Her gratitude was a deep-seated thing, intense and profound. It planted a sense of calm in her heart, safe in the knowledge that she wouldn’t have to face this impossible trial on her own.

It wouldn’t take long. The two of them could easily dig out his ship and take off before dawn. They might not know where exactly the Darkness lived, but they could sense it, and with their minds working together, they could seek it out. Destroy it. Destroy the fear dividing them.

It was too much, perhaps, to hope for, but Ben would take that chance.  
He brushed his thumb across her cheek.  
  
Her eyes flicked up to his face and she moved, instinct of her own driving her forward until her lips pressed against his. She didn’t want their earlier connection to die with the sandstorm. She wanted it to grow in this barren place.

He felt her light and warmth caressing him, but more than that, the gentle meeting of their lips told him of her certainty, something precious and fragile that he didn't know he could want.  
  
Her trust in him, more sturdy than the rock beneath them, was not conditional, and it would not expire the moment they fled this world.  
  
He basked in her tenderness, the way her tongue darted curiously to meet him, and deepened the kiss.

She sighed into him and something clicked into place within her.  
  
This was what belonging felt like. Safe and cared for in someone’s arms, secure in the knowledge that she didn’t have to let him go, that she didn’t have to be alone anymore.

He let the moment hang between them, the darkness and wind rushing into the tent from beyond, their heartbeats pounding as they prepared to charge into the unknown together. He let the peace between them grow and take on a new life, one of strained hope and determination.

The Darkness would grow. And they would rise to meet it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey Nadia you said you wanted a fic based off the trailer, right? Well we started it that day, we did, I swear, spent the entire flight home from Celebration writing, and boy howdy it took us a minute but how would you like uhhhh  
> let me flip through this stack of papers  
> like  
> 40 pages of porn?  
> How's that sound?
> 
>  
> 
> This was some practice to keep us sharp. SSC updates will be resuming soon. Killtheselights was in a car accident and has spent the better part of the past two months, injured, ill, or in grad school, and all of those things are terrible, so it'll be back once she stops dying.


End file.
